Fedoras & facial hair: are they mortal enemies?

[Lexybeast]

This is moving from "tasteful" to "swashbuckling" but hey, it's Orson Welles!!

EDIT: Great example, LocktownDog. Probably the best we'll find.

 

[Stanley Doble]

This is moving from "tasteful" to "swashbuckling" but hey, it's Orson Welles!!

EDIT: Great example, LocktownDog. Probably the best we'll find.

Not a bad look for an old fat man lol.

Can anyone tell me what kind of hat that is? I don't know what it is but it isn't a fedora. I would get one like that if I thought it would look half as good on me.

 

[1961MJS]

Not a bad look for an old fat man lol.

Can anyone tell me what kind of hat that is? I don't know what it is but it isn't a fedora. I would get one like that if I thought it would look half as good on me.

Hi Stanley

I kind of doubt that Orson would wear a cowboy hat, but it appears to be either a cowboy hat, or a 3 inch brimmed fedora. It's sure isn't a Homburg, a top hat, or a boss of the plains. I could only find one place on the net with the picture and it was a picture sales sight, so I can't lighten it up and see any details. He wears a similar hat in another picture that is basically a boss of the plains, but it's in a "modern" 1930-40's movie.

Later

 

[Chasseur]

I think it also depends on what your day to day style is and whether or not the facial hair style and fedora 'go with that' or not. I think has the thread demonstrates rather well there are guys where a beard or moustache goes VERY well with their own personal style and style of hat. However, I think you really have to try it out yourself to see if it works or not.

For example, I tried a pencil-ish moustache for a year and when I dressed up (suit, formal wear, etc.) with a hat I think it worked well. Unfortunately, I live in Hawaii so I was more often in aloha shirts and other casual wear. On me at least fedora + moustache + aloha shirt made me look like a rather disreputable character from a 1970s cop show... or perhaps a villian from Magnum PI... It just did not work on me. So I went back to clean shaven.

In other words I thought I was channeling this:

or

When in practice I looked more this:

 

[Earp]

Maybe it's because it's not a full face beard, but I like how it works for me and I've gotten a lot of compliments on the look. Here's me with my wife in Michigan at the Wheatland Music Festival on a wonderful, chilly fall day

 

[Mr Badger]

Hell no!

The missus and meself, Halloween 2011!

 

[scooter]

I never step out of my house without my beard (goatee) and my fedora. It's worked for me for a long time and I wouldn't feel right without either. Some like it hot, some like it cold!

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Huh?

Some hats go well with a beard. The fedora is not one of them.

I can't imagine what you mean.

 

[scottyrocks]

I honestly think it just depends on the person and the hat. And then other people looking at the person and the hat. Kilo, your avatar picture is perfect, afaic. The way your face, facial hair, hat, shape and color of the hat, as well as the suit particulars, come together is fantastic. My facial hair automatically negates me from wearing a full beard for more than a few days, never mind what it looks like with any article of clothing.

 

[frussell]

I've had a beard of some kind for about the last 23 years. In all those years, I've never once had any negative comments from another male who was capable of growing a respectable beard. The snotty remarks usually come from someone who can only grow a patchy, thin, scraggly little mess that looks like misplaced underarm hair. Like my grandfather used to say to someone with a weak beard growth - "put some milk on that thing and let the cat lick it off." I don't give a rodent's buttocks if there's a corresponding "Golden Era" movie star that I can base my look on, or whether a "style" blogger thinks I look like a hipster. I've been a hat wearer for 45 years, and I didn't start wearing them because I wanted to look like someone from an old movie. Same with the beard. If I worried about whether other people approved of everything I wore or grew on my face, I'd never leave the house. Bearded and hatted, Frank.
P.S. - Kilo - sharp as a tack. When mine finally greys all the way out, I hope it looks half as good.

 

[scooter]

When I first visited my mother after having grown my beard, she said, "I don't care much for beards!" I replied, "Well then, don't grow one!" We went thru largely the same exchange when she saw my first tattoos.

 

[CountryGent]

Two decades of compliments would indicate that beards and fedoras go well together. I hope that no one will try and tell me that facial hair and nice clothes don't go well together!

 

[DeaconKC]

Hi Country Gent, welcome to the forum!

 

[St.Ignatz]

For three more weeks I'll sport me doras w/ face fuzz.

open road

VS Blue Smoke

Blue Strat w/rain drop

Resistol Western.
Tom D.

 

[bowlerman]

Fedoras and facial hair most certainly are not mortal enemies.

 

[Big_Papi_T]

It is true that we bearded folk have no Golden Era model to point to, neither Gable nor Bogart nor Stewart. In a 1937 novel, the authors had Ellery Queen, the author-detective, pop up in Hollywood with a beard; but generally, men back then, as someone here pointed out, in movies, novels, and real life, were clean-shaven, or sported only the mustache.

Okay, its at the tail end of the Golden Age (1948), and his fedora is more than a little beaten up, but I just had to include one of a beared Bogie from 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'.

 

[Brent Hutto]

It's about like asking "Should people with blue eyes ever wear wing-tip shoes?".

WTF?

 

[Hoss & da Posse]

It's just a hat. Unless you're in costume, it's just another part of your wardrobe and should be treated as such.
Wear the hat- don't let the hat wear you.

This thread has gone on 6 pages already when I thought Dinerman answered quite succinctly 3 or 4 responses in. Hat or facial hair, just wear it...

 

[Mystic]

Mortal ememies ??

I have had some type or style of facial hair for over 40 years....mustache, beard, goatee, mustache and goatee.....even some Elvis sideburns at one time.

I'm somewhat of a newbie to wearing fedoras......

but, my beard never once started a fight with my fedora when I put it on......

 

[Aureliano]

It's just a hat. Unless you're in costume, it's just another part of your wardrobe and should be treated as such.
Wear the hat- don't let the hat wear you.

Exactly.